


Middle Ground

by ExLibrisCraux



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Holding Hands, Platonic Relationships, Trust, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExLibrisCraux/pseuds/ExLibrisCraux
Summary: Sasha Racket is not exactly open and trusting, nor is Oscar Wilde. That's not to say they don't have anything to teach each other.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 31
Kudos: 109





	1. First Contact

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in some hand-wavey portion of time post-Prague and pre-Rome. I'm vague about it because I'm not far enough along in my relisten to be sure of timelines and geography >_>
> 
> Please note: while I too adore that sweet, sweet smut, this is not one of those. The relationship here is and will remain entirely platonic, although if I do my job right there will be moments of emotional vulnerability. I hope you enjoy them just as much as any smoldering slashfic. :3

"I’m sorry, Sasha. You don't like to be touched."

It was a statement, not a question. Sasha, her back still stiff, still a little defensively hunched in on herself, didn't look at Wilde. She grunted a surly non-response and resumed flipping her daggers one by one out of their various sheaths and into the opposite wall.

Wilde watched this with a mild expression. The brush of his hand against hers had been truly accidental, a result of distraction and misjudged distance as he was passing between her and the nearby table, but her reaction had been arresting. Sasha had curled inward like a touch-me-not fern, the dagger in her hand reversed and pointed at his throat in a startling instant.

He didn’t interrupt now, just watched her bury her blades with unerring accuracy into the dark wood of the wall. The common room of their lodgings wasn’t exactly the palace at Versailles in any case, but Sasha was doing an excellent job of transforming it from ‘uncomfortable quarters’ to ‘seedy dive’ without much apparent effort. The far wall now sported a variety of knife-hole patterns, testament to several evenings spent as target practice.

“-neh,” Sasha finally muttered. _Thunk. Wssh-thunk._ Two more daggers flew home into the wood. Wilde stayed silent, maintained the carefully neutral expression he was wearing. He had learned, over the last little while, that Sasha was not as reticent as an early impression might suggest. Like luring close a skittish stray cat, if you were patient and still and nonthreatening, eventually, she _would_ talk. Wilde had found that he quite appreciated what the young thief had to say, when she did.

“‘s not a big deal.” _Wssh-thunk_. Sasha still didn’t look at him, but the angle of her stance had changed, turned toward him just a little. This was encouraging.

Wilde hesitated, then took a gamble and responded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Sasha shook her head and whipped another dagger across the room, once more falling mute. Wilde watched for another moment or two, and then withdrew, leaving her to her solitude.

* * *

Wilde glared at the pile of reports in front of him, which did not seem in any way perturbed by his annoyance, and decided that enough was enough for one day. Day? He glanced out the small window and winced. Evening, then.

“Been at it a _while_ -d,” said a voice in the doorway, and Wilde carefully did not let out a startled scream. Sasha was grinning when he turned around, leaning with practiced insouciance against the doorframe, proud of her pun. “That was a _good_ one.”

“It _was_ ,” he replied, weary enough that even summoning a pun in riposte was too much effort and settling for positive reinforcement alone. Wilde stood and stretched, arching backwards until his spine popped, and he let out a sigh of relief.

When he straightened, Sasha was fidgeting. “I do, actually,” she said. She glanced up and, correctly interpreting the concussed-rabbit expression Wilde wore, elaborated, “...want to talk about it. That is. If you still- I mean, it’s not, like, _important_ , it’s just-”

Wilde waved a hand in a delicate, negating gesture. “No,” he said, cutting her off, “it _is_ important. And I do. Still want to listen. That is.” A tiny smile chased his words, softening his mimicry of her.

“Not here.” Sasha straightened, tension riding her frame. She shoved her hands into her pockets. “I mean. I _like_ Grizzop ‘n Hamid ‘n Azu but I don’t… there’s some things you don’t want your friends to know about, right? Like, they _rely_ on me, yeah, to be good at things, and not be like. Weak.”

‘ _...you don’t want your friends to know._ ’ Wilde was certain Sasha hadn’t intended anything by it, but he was surprised by the slight sting her phrasing brought. He was not a friend.

But that, of course, was no surprise. The party had made it clear that Wilde was an employer, or at least a representative of their employers, and an annoyance, and an occasional help, but nothing truly _friendly_ , and that was as it should be. He’d carefully cultivated that exact relationship with the London And Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group. Carefully and deliberately. There was nothing to be gained in getting attached.

Still. Sasha wanted to talk- _needed_ to talk, it seemed, and Wilde knew well enough that this window would not open twice. Why it was important to take advantage of it he did not examine.

“Where shall we go? Lady’s choice.” He bowed to her, a deliberately over-the-top, courtly gesture that garnered, as intended, a slightly embarrassed snort from the thief lurking in his doorway.

“How are you at climbing?”

* * *

Wilde was pretty good at climbing, it turned out. Sasha beat him to the roof, of course, but he was not far behind her, and didn’t need the hand up that she didn’t offer him anyway. This wasn’t his first rooftop, she was sure, although why some poncy git in expensive clothes would be scrambling around among shingles and chimneys was beyond her.

Still, the roof was safe from prying eyes and listening ears - not that any of the party would deliberately eavesdrop, but you know, old habits and all that - and he’d got up here without falling to his death, so on balance Sasha figured it was a good thing he knew his way around guttering and eaves.

She folded herself up against the rough brick of a chimney, hugging her knees to her chest. After a moment, Wilde sat down beside her - not too close, she was privately grateful to note. They sat there in silence for a little while. The sun had long since gone down, and its last sunset sliver of pink-grey gilded the horizon while above them stars brightened in the deep, blue-black night sky. The city wasn’t quiet - no city ever was, no matter the time of day or night - but the noise of people and carts and distant music from some pub or party was muted, up here. Sasha gave herself the time to focus on the noises, to sift through them and identify them all, pinpointing their sources, populating the ever-evolving map of the city in her mind. Wilde, to his credit, stayed silent, giving her that time uninterrupted.

Finally, he shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position on the awkward angle of the roof, and Sasha reluctantly refocused her attention on _here_.

“So like.” A dagger had already found its way to her hand, one of the small ones tucked snugly in their slim sheaths at her wrists. Sasha spun it expertly through her fingers, trying to wrap words around the muddy, inexpressible mess in her head. “I didn’t… have a _great_ time, growin’ up. I’m sure you know that already. Your kind, you don’t do anything without findin’ out everything there is to find about people first.”

Sasha didn’t miss the swift flicker of expression across Wilde’s face when she said this, but left it alone. He wouldn’t like it being pointed out, she knew. It was something they had in common. You had the face that you showed to everybody around you, and whatever was going on underneath it never got to the surface. Not where anybody else could see.

It was, in fact, one of the reasons Sasha had decided she could talk to Wilde, when she couldn’t bring herself to talk to the rest of her companions. They cared too much. They _felt_ too much. And more than that, they _showed_ it. To Sasha’s mind, it was inexplicable and incredibly discomfiting.

But Wilde… Wilde, she suspected, _got it_.

“I guess I didn’t get to _be_ a kid for long,” Sasha continued, staring at the knife as it flipped over her knuckles to land hilt-first against her palm. “And there wasn’t a lot of-- it just wasn’t great,” she repeated lamely. Sasha risked a glance up at Wilde, pleading silently to prove her suspicion correct.

He was looking at her. Directly at her, _intently_ at her. Sasha froze, staring back. She wasn’t used to being _looked at_ , not like this. Sasha was easy to miss, part of the background; nothing to see here, move along. She was proud of it. And now here was Wilde, _looking right at her_ like he could see straight through to the back of her head, and Sasha couldn’t decide whether or not she wanted to look away.

Because it was frightening- but it was also, in some alien way, a relief. To be seen. To have somebody actually, really… _see her_.

“I know,” Wilde said quietly. He was smiling, maybe - it was hard to tell, with so little light up here above the street lamps and uncurtained windows and doors. Most of his face was in shadow, but the shadows had definition and gradients, and part of them seemed to be angled slightly upward in what Sasha thought was probably the wry expression he got when he was forced to be direct about something for once.

“I won’t ask you to tell me more,” he continued, “if you don’t wish to. I understand.”

Sasha turned her head to look out over the staggered peaks of city roofs, warm lamplight from below blurring together at the edges of her vision with cool starlight from above. She hated the sharp heat of tears, and dragged a savage sleeve over her eyes to banish the first hint of treacherous damp.

When she turned back to Wilde, he was holding out a hand toward her, palm up. An offer, rather than a request, but Sasha went instantly, utterly still, staring at it as though waiting for it to strike. Wilde only curled his fingers a little, a tiny wave pinky to pointer.

“I _do_ understand,” Wilde said again, softly. “I promise I do. I took those same lessons and went the other way. Too much touching, rather than not enough. Touch that means nothing, instead of touch that means too much at once.”

The slender, delicate fingers curled again, repeating the same rippling invitation.

“There’s middle ground, though. I’ve been learning that lately.”

Wilde slid a tiny bit closer. Sasha didn’t move. She could feel the pressure of her pulse in her throat, rapid as a frightened rabbit.

Wilde gestured to her hand, and Sasha dropped her gaze to see what he was pointing at. _Oh_ . Yes. She had a knife. She was safe; she had a knife and she controlled her own safety and that- that was _good_. Good.

“Let’s try this.” Wilde’s voice was still quiet, and gentler than she’d ever heard him speak. “You have your knife; keep that in one hand. You pick. Whichever one feels best to you, hold your knife in that hand. Give me the other one. Just your hand, Sasha. Just one hand.”

Sasha swallowed. Just… her hand. That was safe enough, right? She was up high, she had a knife in her hand, and she knew for a fact she was faster than Wilde, and maybe stronger, and anyway he _needed_ her, needed the whole group of them, and if he hurt her the others would leave him to fix his own problems (if Grizzop didn’t murder him, that is, one kneecap at a time)-

She blinked, startled to see that her hand had somehow, apparently acting independently of orders from her, reached over to gingerly rest against Wilde’s. Sasha frowned at it. It stayed where it was. So did his. Wilde kept his hand open, careful not to hold her fast in any way. He was, Sasha realized, leaving every facet of this interaction under her complete control.

Sasha lifted her gaze to Wilde’s face. He was still watching her intently. Below them and across the street, someone opened a door, freeing a warm wash of light from within, and it caught in Wilde’s eyes, restoring a glimmer of color in the nighttime gloom. Green, Sasha noted. Or grey? Maybe blue, a little. Hard to say in the uncertain light.

Hesitantly, with aching slowness, Sasha curled her fingers around Wilde’s palm.

Just as slowly but with more surety, Wilde mirrored her until they were loosely holding each other’s hand.

“Thank you,” Wilde murmured. There was warmth in his voice. Sasha dropped her gaze from his face to their joined hands. It was… so strange, this feeling of someone else’s skin against hers for no other reason than to feel it there. Sure, she touched people- hard not to when most of your fighting was hand to hand- but not… like this.

Wilde’s hand was warm and dry. His palm was smooth, but Sasha was startled to notice calluses at his fingertips when they brushed against her skin. There was a moment of confusion before the penny dropped: they marked where a pen would sit, mutely betraying the countless hours he’d spent putting ink to paper. And she could feel the thrum of his pulse where one fingertip rested against Wilde’s wrist. It was strong and steady, and Sasha counted along with every beat. _One… two… three… four… one… two… three… four…_

Gradually, as though chasing his, her own pulse eased from frantic fight-or-flight to something approaching calm. As close as Sasha ever came to it, anyway. She drew in a long breath and looked up at Wilde’s face again.

He was singing, Sasha realized: very softly, almost too softly to hear. She likely would never have noticed if she hadn’t seen his lips moving. Intrigued, Sasha leaned forward a little, straining to catch the melody, but Wilde, seeing her move, shook his head with a tiny smile.

“Nope,” he said. “It ruins the magic.” The wink he gave her was impish. Delicately as a flower unfolding its petals to the morning sun, Wilde uncurled his hand from around Sasha’s, reaffirming her freedom. She slid her hand from his and tucked it immediately into her pocket. Something in her didn’t want the feeling of warmth and unexpected safety this had brought to somehow drain away without the strangely-comforting touch to hold it in place.

“Better?”

Sasha thought a moment, then nodded.

“Better.”

“Good.” Wilde got to his feet, braced a hand on the chimney against which he’d been propped, and yawned expansively. “I’ll leave you to your rooftops and gargoyles,” he told her, and grinned. “I’m a creature of comfort and I need my creature comforts after being out in the cold and dark for so long. Enjoy the evening.”

Sasha sat there alone for a long time after Wilde vanished back indoors. She stared over the rooftops, retraced the feeling of Wilde’s warm hand in hers, and thought about nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How, Wilde wondered, did Sasha manage to unintentionally but unerringly land on old, carefully-hidden bruises each and every time they talked? It was uncanny.

It was late afternoon, heading into evening. The band of companions calling themselves the London and Other London Outstanding Mercenary Group had found a sheltered place to settle down and wait for full darkness before continuing on to their objective under the blessed concealment of night.

There wasn’t a lot of settling in to do, since they were there temporarily, but what little there was, they immediately set about accomplishing. The group’s dynamic was effortless, and Wilde admired it. Azu immediately set about gathering an armful of dry-fallen deadwood for the small fire Grizzop was kindling; Hamid had already disappeared up to his waist into a bag of holding, rummaging for the makings of an evening meal. Sasha was keeping watch, warily observing their surroundings for the first hint of threat - and woe betide that hint, he thought wryly, if she saw it.

Having nothing to contribute, Wilde stood aside for a few minutes watching, and finally left them to their good-natured bickering. His wandering found him a tree, small but with a good spread of branches still within sight and earshot of the little temporary camp, and Wilde sat down beneath it.

There were missives to be reviewed, after all, and replies to be composed, and events to log in the journal he kept for that purpose. That much, at least, Wilde was skilled enough to do, even if that contribution was not widely recognized. That was deliberate, he reminded himself. His work was of necessity clandestine, to be kept out of sight and out of mind as much as possible, even from this small group of allies.

“Hey, uh. Wilde.”

Wilde turned his head. Sasha was standing nearby, having apparently materialized there out of thin air. He was growing accustomed to the fact that if the young woman didn’t want to be noticed she just _wouldn’t be noticed_. It was unnerving, and also a pleasant affirmation of his choice of field agents. Sasha was, above all else, very good at what she did.

“You look awful,” she said. She didn’t come any closer, but there was a hint of something approaching camaraderie in her tone, for all that the words were brusque. Wilde shook himself, snapped his fingers, and grinned brightly at Sasha with a face suddenly not a whit haggard or lined with stress.

Clearly unimpressed, Sasha only looked at him with an expression reminiscent of one of his old governesses. “You know you’re not foolin’ anyone, right?” 

“Perhaps, but illusion is the first of all pleasures,” Wilde replied cheerfully. He beamed at her and returned his attention to the small, leatherbound journal in which he was writing. Sasha was quiet a moment, and then to his surprise and secret pleasure dropped to sit close by.

Watching Sasha sit was fascinating. She folded up like an ungainly deckchair, but managed somehow to land with a kind of easy grace. Wilde supposed it came of the rigid, wary control with which she moved at all times. It was easy to be graceful when you knew precisely what your body could do, right down to tendon and marrow.

She leaned just a little bit to glance at the page where ink was still drying. Wilde lofted an imperious brow at her and tilted the book away, just a little, and Sasha leaned back again. “All right, all right, I was just _lookin’_ ,” she said.

Wilde considered what he had been writing. In truth, there was nothing there that she didn’t already know. There was no risk in letting her see. He blew gently across the page and then, satisfied the ink was dry, offered the journal over to her, brow still haughtily arched. “Be my guest,” he said, and Sasha, now looking slightly suspicious, reached to take the book gingerly from his hand.

Their fingers brushed as she did, and Sasha withdrew swiftly, a bit of color rising to her cheeks. She peered down at the page, scowling. “How do you _read_ this?” she muttered. “It’s all… twisty and curlicued and fancy. What is that, a Q? It looks like a _number_ , Wilde. Where did you learn how to _write_?”

Wilde laughed - he couldn’t help it, her annoyance was refreshingly honest - and he took the book back from her, careful this time not to touch her hand. He tucked the little journal into his pocket and leaned back against the tree behind them, shifting position to loosely drape his arms over his updrawn knees.

“No-one takes you seriously if you don’t write like you’re dodging ants on the paper,” Wilde told her, slightly surprised to find himself being less guarded in his answer than he might otherwise have been. “Not in the circles I move in.”

Sasha nodded. “Yeah, makes sense, I guess. Prob’ly think you’re like, some commoner, if you write so anybody else can read it.” She looked into the middle distance, and her expression brightened. “Yeah! ‘Slike… ‘slike thieves’ cant, kind of! Like a secret code, ‘n you can only get in th’government or whatnot if you can read ‘n write all flow-y.”

“Exactly so,” Wilde replied smoothly, and carefully schooled the wounded tone out of his voice. “It would never do, for anyone to think I was some commoner.” How, he wondered, did Sasha manage to unintentionally but unerringly land on old, carefully-hidden bruises each and every time they talked? It was uncanny.

She was perceptive, though.

“But… you are, aren’t you?” Sasha’s question was a quiet one, nearly a whisper. She peered at him, searching his face for confirmation, and must have somehow found it there, despite the practiced mask of bland insolence he’d instantly snapped into place. “You _are_ . People like- like Hamid, and _Bertie-_ ” Sasha’s voice was harsher there, a certain chill creeping into her tone. “-they were _born_ into all that. They belong to it just because they _exist_ . But like- _I’ll_ never even get to peek in the window, and even you gotta _work_ at it.”

Wilde looked away, unable to conceal that this particular arrow - however unintentional - had hit home, and unwilling to let her see the mask crack, to watch him try to hurriedly patch it back together.

A soft rustle betrayed Sasha’s movement. Distractedly, it occurred to him that this must have been deliberate. Sasha was _silent_ unless she wanted to be. That detached part of Wilde appreciated the gesture for what it was. The rest of him was curled around the hurt: old, habitual defensiveness that he’d long since thought abandoned.

“-Wilde…?”

Sasha’s voice was quiet, and not far from his ear. She’d moved closer than he’d realized.

“Wilde, are you-” She muttered a word he shouldn’t have been shocked to learn she knew, and Wilde sat up straighter. He dragged his hands over his face and turned his head to give her a brilliant smile, the mask back in place. Mostly.

“I’m- sorry, Wilde, I should’ve- I mean, I didn’t know but I _should’ve_ guessed, that was _dumb_ and I just-”

“No, Sasha; stop. Stop. It’s… fine. It’s fine.” Wilde looked away, faced forward again, watching nothing in particular; he tugged his knees up tighter, hugging them with his arms. He took a breath, let it out slowly. “It’s fine.”

Sasha didn’t answer. The awkward silence stretched itself between them, each passing second rendering it more difficult to break. After a while, when he hadn’t heard Sasha speak or move or even _breathe_ , Wilde decided she must have - as she so often did - snuck away unnoticed. He didn’t get up yet. The sun was setting, sending long shadows reaching over the landscape and casting the world in a warm, rosy glow. Leaning forward a touch, Wilde rested his chin on his knees and sighed. The sunset was appealing, the kind of vista that was just as easily enjoyed alone as with company.

He was growing resignedly accustomed to that balance tipping more and more frequently to alone, these days.

Wilde jumped as he felt the unexpected warmth of fingertips just barely touching the back of his hand. Sasha, still sitting beside him after all, swiftly drew back her hand as though burned, and Wilde couldn’t catch the tiny, soft noise of distress before it left his lips.

“I thought-” Sasha bit her lip, splotchy color riding high on her cheeks as she fumbled for words. “I just, it- the _hand_ thing, it - helped. That night, you know? On the roof. It… helped. And I thought maybe- maybe it would help _you_. A little. Cos I mean, ‘s my fault you’re upset. And.”

Wilde just stared at her, for once unable to summon a single quip or clever turn of phrase to answer this. From Sasha of all people, it was altogether unexpected.

No, he thought. No. From Sasha of all people… it made sense.

“Please,” Wilde whispered. He didn’t bother trying to hide from her the weariness in his voice, or its undercurrent of aching loneliness. “You’re perfectly correct. It- helps.”

Sasha hesitated, then scooted sideways closer to him until their shoulders touched, and drew her knees up to her chest, copying his posture. Wilde watched out of the corner of his eye, astonished and not daring to breathe lest she change her mind and bolt.

She turned her head to look up at him. With all the solemnity of some sacred ceremony, Sasha offered her hand to him, palm up.

Mirroring her solemnity, Wilde cautiously and gently covered her hand with his own, resting palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip.

Her hand seemed like such a fragile thing: smaller than his, narrower, bone and tendon clearly defined beneath scarred skin. Wilde knew how deceptive that impression was. There was nothing fragile about Sasha Racket.

Sasha paused for a moment and then, with the air of an experiment, shifted just a touch, just enough to let her curl her fingers upward through Wilde’s. Her grip was tentative, as though she was afraid of hurting him.

Cautiously, Wilde closed his hand around hers. It was such a simple thing. Just a hand, holding his. Uncomplicated. It demanded nothing, gave only warmth and touch.

And like every other interaction with Sasha, somehow, _somehow_ it arrowed straight through the chinks in his defenses and buried itself in the exposed sliver of his too-soft, too-vulnerable heart.

Wilde lowered his head until his brow rested on his knees, and tried not to make a sound as he wept. The world was an enormous, hostile place. The unassailable foundations of civilization were crumbling, whether or not any but a select few were aware. The number of people he could genuinely trust was a miniscule one and dwindling rapidly-

But here was one of them, unanticipated but stubbornly real.

The unlikeliest of friends, Sasha sat beside Wilde and said nothing while his shoulders shook, while his grip tightened on hers as though he was clutching a cliff’s edge a finger’s-breadth away from freefall. She held his hand and, when he finally drew in a breath that didn’t lead immediately into another stifled sob, leaned to peer at his face.

“Better?” she asked.

Wilde, acutely aware of the dampness smudging his face, of how dreadful he must genuinely look, found himself unmotivated to bother casting a glamour.

It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. Sasha saw right through him.

His smile was small and shaky, but sincere in its gratitude, as was his whispered answer. Wilde gently squeezed her hand. “Better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note: AAAAAH! The marvelous [areyouokaypanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouokaypanda/pseuds/areyouokaypanda) has graced this fic with gorgeous art and I am beyond thrilled. :D [Take a look!](https://areyouokaypanda.tumblr.com/post/612856129240907776/drawn-with-specific-characters-in-mind-because)


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